


Obscured Past

by Zephirin



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Amnesia, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Backstory, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Gen, Ghoul Courier, Ghoulification, Ghouls, High roller suite, Independent New Vegas (Fallout), Lucky 38, Mild Gore, Mojave Wasteland (Fallout), Original Character(s), Platonic Relationships, Post-Divide, Post-Old World Blues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Dead Money, Sierra Madre (Fallout)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zephirin/pseuds/Zephirin
Summary: Courier Six didn't think she'd be able to remember where she came from after taking those two bullets in the head. It only took the utterance of one name for it to all come rushing back to her: Autumn Osprey.[The Courier has a flashback to the night the bombs dropped, as well as the beginning of her ghoulification. Her companions worry over her and comfort her when she comes to.]
Kudos: 1





	Obscured Past

Courier Six tried not to let it bother her- the fact that she couldn’t remember. She knew she’s been around for a long time, her irradiated skin, missing body parts, and countless scars could tell her that much. But hey, she was thankful to even be alive after taking a point-blank shot to the head. She tells herself she must’ve been one tough lady, even if she can’t remember the details of what led to that point. Sometimes, though, she gets glimpses into what she was like; be it through the observations other people make of her or when something knowledgeable she doesn’t remember learning tumbles from her lips. It wasn’t until she met Raul Tejada that she had even entertained the thought that she could be from before the War.

“You… You think you knew me from before?” she asked, looking down to her glass of wine. After a day of bartering with the locals on the New Vegas strip, the two had decided to take a seat at the bar in her High Roller suite to take a load off. Six hadn’t expected him to drop this bomb on her, pun unintended.

“I mean, I am an old man, so I’m not saying my memory is super clear, but I remember your voice from the radio. My Rafaela used to listen to it all the time…” he spoke before trailing off, looking wistfully down at his clasped hands. It wasn’t until Six’s hand rested atop his own that he was brought back to the here-and-now.

“ _ My _ voice? Don’t ghoul voices change over time?” she reminded him, chuckling.

“Not all of ‘em, boss. Not mine, not yours. Everyone changes different.” he replied before taking a sip of his scotch. Six had already finished the rest of her glass of wine, opting instead to pour herself a glass of scotch like Raul’s. She was already getting tense- she knew whenever she learned details about her past they often turned out to be painful

“Okay. Let’s say, this woman you heard on the radio was actually me in all of my smoothskinned glory… What was her name? What was she talking about? I think I would’ve remembered being on the radio.” A beat. “By now, at least.”

They both sat there, Six waiting for his response and Raul trying to recall whatever ad she was spouting on the radio back in 2077. Her dog, Rex, had come up to nuzzle her leg under the barstool she sat atop.

“She said she was the best bass player in the Midwest. That she’d be featured at the grand opening of some kind of casino. I remember it because it was the only American ad on the radio in Spanish  _ and _ English. She sounded pretty arrogant to me, but apparently she played backup for a whole lot of big shots so that made it okay. According to Rafaela, at least,” Raul focused intently on her face as he continued,  
“I think your- er-  _ her _ name was Autumn Osprey.”

Immediately her blood ran cold and she nearly choked on her scotch. If she still had normal skin, she’d have goosebumps. That name… she knew deep within herself that she recognized it.

“I think I’ve seen that name on some posters here and there… It can’t be me though. No way. I would’ve remembered the night-” her right hand cradled her scarred head, right shoulder catching itself on the counter as she slumped against the bar, “-shit. My head...”

“Whoa, boss- here, I think you need to lay down. You’re not looking very good. Last time this happened-” Raul interrupted himself to catch her, her body having involuntarily jerked back as she fainted, “-you collapsed. Ugh, you’re glad I like you boss, shit like this is hell on my back.” He carried her to her bed, taking off her heavily armored jacket before covering her with a blanket. The last time this happened was when her adrenaline wore off after coming back from the Divide- she almost immediately ate dirt once she saw Raul waiting for her. He’s glad he was there to keep watch over her then, and he’s glad to be here for her now.

* * *

The sky became a red haze as detonation after detonation went off in multiple directions, some from the middle of the sky that were intercepted by missiles shooting from the Strip. Many screamed while others cried. Many were on their knees praying their families were spared or that the villa they were trapped in could keep them safe.

“Let me in! I’m Autumn Osprey! I’m supposed to be performing in the Tampico! I paid for a room, too! I know this place is nuke-proof!” she screamed at and banged on the door until she came to hear screams equally as loud coming from the other side. Autumn slumped against the door, suddenly feeling the need to catch her breath and watch what the other trapped casino-goers were doing. Her ears rang as she tried to formulate a plan through the sheer dread and panic that overtook every one of her senses.

The entertainer took a deep breath before sprinting toward the gates of the resort, holding her dress above her knee to avoid tripping. She knew that the wispy red fog that stung her ankles and had begun to cover the Villa streets wasn’t the only thing that could kill her tonight- but it still spurned her to run faster. Her skin stung- really bad- but the adrenaline flowing through her kept that thought in the back of her head. She used her thinness to her advantage, slipping through the bars of the gate and out of the death trap that was the Sierra Madre and taking off running toward the parking lot. 

When Autumn found a working car, she drove to the nearest gas station off the highway and was able to block the doors with enough shelves to hole herself up in the now-abandoned convenience store. As she shifted into the exhaustion stage of her stress response, the stinging pain of radiation seeping through her skin elicited a series of choked cries. Weakly, she shuffled over to one of the shelves and was able to get her fingers around a pack of RadAway. Even after collapsing onto the floor, she managed to plunge the solution into her vein as she winced harshly.

“Oh.. my God. I- I’m dying. I’m going to die alone. In a dirty gas station.”

Autumn decided to talk to herself to try to keep conscious. The RadAway was making her feel extremely nauseous, and it wasn’t long before she had to lean over to vomit.   
“I’m still alive. I can do this. I can survive- Agh! Fuck- I’ve never used RadAway before,” she hysterically went on, voice growing hoarse after all of the screaming she has undergone in the day. Her head began to clear and her skin no longer stung; instead, it felt uncomfortably numb.

Autumn wasn’t sure how many minutes or hours passed until she moved from that spot, she just wept as she watched through the window the dusty orange sky fade to a hazy brown. It wasn’t until night time fell that she popped some of the available Rad-X and found it in herself to stand up. She almost immediately regretted this decision as she leaned over to throw up again. After bracing herself against the shelf, she looked in horror at the back of her hand. A long red stripe of exposed muscle and sinew slashed down her skin, as though the skin atop it was ripped off. There was no pain in this area, only numbness, but that didn’t stop Autumn from screaming and running to the gas station bathroom. The fusion core generator was still in operation behind the building, so when she turned on the light she was met face-to-face with her recently irradiated self in the mirror.

Autumn’s eye makeup ran down her cheeks in dark streaks, her only half-applied lipstick smudged onto her left cheek. She saw now that her hand was not the only place on her body with exposed flesh and sinew; the most prominently exposed areas being her neck and the middle of her face. Her once brilliant blue eyes stared back at her, now hazy and bloodshot. The more she scrutinized herself in the mirror, the more terrified she became.

* * *

“Boss! Boss, it’s okay, wake up!”

Courier Six bolted upright in bed, having startled the small group of her companions that were gathered in the room. Rex licked at her face, lapping up tears she didn’t realize appeared. Veronica sat at the foot of her bed, Raul crowded to her left side, and Arcade stood near the doorway writing on a clipboard. Six’s heart was beating out of her chest and she struggled to catch her breath.

“Six. You were hyperventilating due to entering a panic attack. I had to tell Raul to wake you,” Arcade stated matter-of-factly. Even though he spoke with the tone of a trained medical professional, she still picked up on the hint of worry in his voice.

“Um… thanks,” she cleared her throat before speaking again, “I- I finally remembered who I used to be. Before the War began. Even the day the bombs fell.” The moment of silence that permeated the room was only broken by Rex’s soft woof as he burrowed under the bedsheets.  
“Raul was right. ‘The name’s Autumn Osprey, I’m the best bassist in the Midwest!’” she imitated, beginning to grow embarrassed at the amount of attention being placed on her in the moment.  
“That’s what I used to tell people. It’s funny, ain’t it? Probably made me sound like a real bitch.”

“That’s an Old World name if I’ve ever heard one,” Veronica replied, her voice slightly warbling as she grasped Six’s ankle affectionately, “neither of those even exist any more.”

“I’m glad _you’re_ finding a bit of humor in it, boss. You scared the shit out of us,” Raul stated as he leaned against the wall, “Arcade’s only here because Rex ran down to the Mormon Fort after you started convulsing- The poor dog thought you were  _ dying _ .”

Upon hearing his name, Rex’s snout popped up from under the covers and nuzzled his owner’s left cheek. Autumn smiled and laughed, wrapping her arms around the mutt and smooching his head in response.

“When I came up here, Cass thought you were going feral. Luckily for you, your body was just physically responding as it underwent what appeared to be a series of traumatic flashbacks,” Arcade concluded, clicking his pen and taking the patient report off of his clipboard. He nodded solemnly as he handed the report to her before his voice softened.   
“I’m sorry you had to go through that again, Six.”

Autumn snorted in response before smiling wide and speaking with a newly found confidence.

“What would I do without you assholes? Come on, bring it in. You ever hear of a group hug?”


End file.
